


God Help Me, Part 10a

by ErinGayle



Series: God Help Me [10]
Category: Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, M/M, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:48:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26534620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinGayle/pseuds/ErinGayle
Summary: March is a really long month.(Rosie's death isn't described.)
Relationships: Freddy Finkel/Captain Klenzendorf, Rosie Betzler/Captain Klenzendorf
Series: God Help Me [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819291
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. Thursday, March 1

Gerti was in the kitchen folding and ironing kitchen towels. She liked to match the corners exactly before folding them and ironing in the creases. There was a knock at the front door, and she heard the children all run that direction. Gerti and her children lived with her mother and a few of Gerti’s sisters in a large, tidy house on the edge of town. Her mother was out trying to buy vegetables other than potatoes. Even beets would be a welcome change.

“Heil Hitler, Frau Rahm.”

Startled by the smooth voice, Gerti looked up at the same time she pressed the iron on her finger. “OW! Heil Hitler, Captain Deertz.” She saluted him with the iron, noticed, and hastily set the iron down on the stove. “Heil Hitler,” she repeated awkwardly.

Deertz smiled at her. His smile was gently disarming. “Perhaps we can have a chat.” 

Looking behind the Gestapo officer, Gerti saw the children, a mix of her own and nieces and nephews, hanging in the doorway to the kitchen. Everyone was blonde and blue or green eyed. “Of course. All of you, out. Go practice singing the _Horst-Wessel-Lied._ ” 

Deertz waited until the children were gone. “Shall we sit down?” he asked gesturing to the long, worn wooden table.

Gerti nervously smiled. “Of course.” She sat down and held her hands together in her lap.

Deertz waited a few moments to see if Gerti might blurt out anything. He wasn’t surprised when she didn’t. The Rahms were a rough clan, and had he wanted to pursue wife beaters and child abusers, he could make a career of them. “An unfamiliar man with an attaché case was seen entering the _Jugend_ building last Wednesday during the afternoon. Did you see him?”

“No, sir. I was getting ready for the _Madel_ class from three to three-thirty, and then we had class until five. Sergeant Finkle was showing the girls how to clean a rifle.”

“And where was Captain Klenzendorf?”

“In his office I suppose.”

“Have you seen anything unusual in the office or around the building lately?”

“No. The Captain is pretty preoccupied. He worries about the kids and the war. And, especially the Russians. The hospital commander has him drawing up plans to defend the town and evacuate the hospital.”

Deertz smiled. “Really? So, no packages or envelopes?”

“No, sir.”

“And Frau Betzler, has she been over lately?”

“No. They had a terrible argument in January. They made up by the end of the day, but those two certainly can yell and use big words at the same time.”

“Did they?”

“She was furious that only one student passed the Grammar Exam.”

Deertz recalled that excruciating exam. It wasn’t required for school leaving or the _abitur_ , but it was a point of pride to pass it. He hadn’t passed until his last year in _gymnasium_. “It’s a horrible exam,” he mused.

“Yes, but Captain K said that Frau Betzler wrote her thesis on German grammar.”

“Did she? Well, I suppose that’s why she’s so committed to students passing it. Who passed?”

Gerti smiled. “Magda Forster, of course. Captain K announced it at the next _Madel_ class. He was so proud of her she may as well have been his own daughter.”

Deertz smiled dimmed a bit. “Is he so close with all the children?”

Gerti nodded. “He really tries to, but Magda’s a favorite of his even though he tries not to show it. And, since Frau Forster died, Magda sticks a little closer to Captain K. He’s much better with the kids than I ever thought he’d be.”

Deertz liked to end these interviews on a friendly note. “And how is your husband, Sebastian? He’s a sergeant now?”

“Tank commander, 11th Panzers,” Gerti said proudly. She hadn’t seen him on a casualty or POW list, so she assumed he and his tank were still in the fight.

Deertz smiled. “I’m sure you are very proud of him and that he is anxious to get home.”


	2. Monday, March 5

Gerti opened the morning mail. The big envelope from Nuremberg kept getting heavier. The first thing to fall out was that month’s conscription list. She looked at the birthdate column. Every one was from 1933, 1934, or 1935 or 1895, 1894, and 1893. She feared handing the list to Karl. The heavier list was the casualty list. She dreaded having to read through it and underline the kids from the troop. She was always afraid she’d see her husband or a cousin on it. It was easier to hand this list to Karl. He was only sad and regretful when he sat down to write the official condolence letters he sent. 

She heard Karl and Freddie talking as they came down the stairs. “Heil Hitler, Captain K, Herr Finkle.”

“Heil Hitler, Fraulein Rahm,” Karl said automatically as he looked over at Magda’s desk. “Good. Magda’s at school.”

“This month’s conscription list, Captain.” Gerti just wanted to get it over with.

Freddie watched Karl take out his lighter and light a cigarette first. He was smoking more these days. Karl took the list from Gerti, glanced at the names, then held it up to the lighter’s flame. He held the curling burned pages over the trashcan and twisted his wrist this way and that allowing the ash to fall in the can, and the flame devoured what was left.

Gerti stared at Karl. She’d never imagined anyone would purposely destroy an official state document. “What…what should I say when they ask where the conscriptees are?”

Karl shrugged as he walked away. “Measles. Tell them the whole town is infested with measles. And, let the _Volksturm_ deal with their own conscripts.”

Herman Deertz groaned and let his head fall back. “What do you mean you don’t keep that kind of list? All I want to know is who wrote theses on German grammar between 1924 and 1928.” He would certainly keep that kind of list if he were handing out diplomas from one of Germany’s most respected universities. He listened to a stressed woman try to explain that they only kept a list of those granted diplomas, and it was alphabetical by last name. The theses lists were kept by the librarian. However, a lot of the records were inaccessible due to the air raids over Berlin.

“Well, when will they be accessible again?”

“Herr Deertz,” the secretary said with absolute finality. “When someone can piece together the ashes of the administrative offices. Now, good day to you.”

Deertz winced at the sound of a phone being slammed down on him. Rosie’s police file was open on his desk: Adelheid Rosemary Betzler, née von Bischoffen. And, not one black mark against her. Looking over at Rosie’s official Gestapo file, the only thing ever reported about her were two raucous parties after the defeat of Poland and France—perfectly excusable, the mystery around the fate of her husband, and the comings and goings of Captain Karl R. Klenzendorf. Deertz closed the official files. He kept his own, better notes on people of interest.

He picked up the book Modern Military Strategy: Theory and Application and turned to the photos and maps. Using his desk scissors, he sliced the photo of Oberst Graf Franz-Jozef von Corten, Franz-Karl, and Adelheid from the book. It was strange that a child’s friend would be in a family photo. She wasn’t even noted as a cousin. The Oberst took a properly martial pose with his son, but the boy was closer to the girl than his father. Deertz peered through his magnifying glass. The two children were holding hands. There was a von Corten in the Party up in Nuremberg. He picked up his phone and had the operator ring him through.

Heinrich von Corten heard the phone ring on his secretary’s desk. The damn thing never stopped. He didn’t know why people were constantly calling him asking for legal opinions. No one paid attention anyway. But, he dutifully filed his memos rejecting courses of action as illegal via both German law, tradition, and the rules of war. He’d probably be shot for it someday. Maybe he should just quit coming to work and say he needed to take care of his mother out at Adlernhof.

“Herr Heinrich, some Gestapo captain for you!”

Heinrich picked up the phone. “Heil Hitler, the answer is probably _no_.”

Deertz was taken aback. He momentarily wondered what kind of calls the Party legal counsel usually received. “Heil Hitler. This is Captain Herman Deertz of the Falkenheim Gestapo. Would you know a Franz-Jozef von Corten?”

Heinrich paused. He couldn’t deny it. It was on his Party records. “Yes. That was my father’s name. He died in 1917.”

“Oberst Graf von Corten?”

“Why do you want to know?” Heinrich asked with a sigh.

“It came up in the course of an investigation. Is Franz-Karl von Corten your brother?”

This was not good, Heinrich thought to himself. Why would anyone be curious about Karl after all these years? “My brother Franz-Karl left Germany in 1933. He went to South Africa after a particularly vicious argument with our mother over the family estates and money. As far as I know, she liquidated his share, deposited it in a Swiss account, and told him not to ever darken her doorstep again.” 

Deertz added a few notes to his notepad. “British South Africa?” He also wrote _Reichsbank?_

“Yes. He had TB and needed a drier climate.”

“I see. Any word from him since?”

“No. Once my mother has laid down the law on something, _ni shagu nazad_.[1]”

“You speak Russian?”

Heinrich tried to good naturedly chuckle. “Everybody on the Eastern Front knows that phrase. I did my time and lost a perfectly good spleen in the bargain.”

“And, Adelheid Grafine von Bischoffen?”

There was no family lie about Rosie, but he didn’t owe the Gestapo the truth. “I never knew Heidi well. She was my brother’s friend.”

“Well, thank you for your time. Heil Hitler.” Deertz hung up and looked back at the photo. If it was a coincidence there were two Adelheid von Bischoffens both born around 1904 and living in Berlin near the end of the last war, it was a remarkable one, and Herman Deertz just didn’t believe in those. And, for both girls to have a romantic interest in a man named Karl at some point? He wished he had a better photo of Oberst von Corten to compare with Karl Klenzendorf. Deertz wondered if the old pre-1933 police records in Berlin were still accessible. He could request a records search on all four names.

Heinrich hung up his phone. Although Heinrich hadn’t had a warm relationship with either of them, he didn’t want to see Karl or Rosie hurt if they were still in Germany. He missed his oldest brother, and Rosie had been effervescent as a woman, if still unwittingly condescending toward him. Heinrich thought back, and he had been a fairly horrific teenaged boy. As for their mother, Grafine Sofia, she often asked if Heinrich had seen Karl’s name anywhere. Heinrich never told her that Karl’s name was still on the arrest list of anti-Party activists.

[1] Not One Step Back—Joseph Stalin


	3. Tuesday, March 6

Neither Karl nor Rosie knew why they kept doing the jobs they had. Rosie assumed the children needed some kind of normalcy. Karl hoped he could keep the youngest ones from picking up a gun unless they had to defend themselves. They were still meeting and discussing the children. They each made more notes about dead fathers, no food, and desperate mothers.

“The Russians are over the Oder to the north and have taken Budapest to the south. The Americans are probably going to cross the lower Rhine near Remagen this week,” Karl barely whispered as he recapped his pen. 

“Where’s Remagen?” Rosie whispered fearfully. 

“About two hundred kilometers north of Heidelberg.” Karl chose a city Rosie probably knew.

Rosie pressed her hand to her mouth. “How much…how much longer?”

Karl finally looked up. He shook his head. “Weeks? It’s time to go, Rosie. The Russians are the real threat. If they get to Plzen or Salzburg….You have to go now.” Karl had called the train station from the hospital inquiring about track conditions for his putative hospital evacuation. The lines were still open and functional all the way to Obertsdorf. She could get a ride to Oma Irena’s summer house from there and either wait for the end or cross the Swiss border sixty kilometers away at Widnau. She and Jojo would at least be more likely to fall under American or French occupation than Russian. He just needed to put them on a train one evening.

Rosie looked into his eyes. His velvety brown eye implored her. As for his blind eye, Rosie saw fear there. “I can’t leave the house,” she barely whispered.

Karl threw his ledger book in the floor and rushed around the desk. He loomed over her and jerked her chair around by the arms. “What!” he hissed.

“I can’t leave the house,” she repeated as her voice trembled.

“Rosie, there is nothing in that damn house that you can’t replace! Nothing!” he softly yelled.

“I can’t leave the house.” Rosie closed her eyes to keep back the tears. When she opened them again, Karl was staring at her wide eyed, his mouth slightly agape.

 _The tiger in Inge’s room._ Karl couldn’t speak. She had someone in the house. No wonder Jojo was infatuated with Jews. “Oh, God.” He slowly collapsed into the floor until his head was in her lap. He felt her hands patting his back. “Why are you so God damn brave?”

“Can you…Could you get Jojo to your mother?”

Karl sat up and his eyes were doubtful. He took her hands in his. “The front is moving that way. When it breaks,…. I’m going to help get you, Jojo, and whatever is so damn valuable out.”

“What about Freddie?” Rosie managed to ask.

“I can’t let Freddie know. And, tell absolutely no one.” 

“But, if I just disappear—”

“Can you assure me that absolutely no one you know might be an informer or pressured into it?” Karl watched Rosie’s brow unhappily furrow. He took her hands in his and kissed them. “I’ve already been thinking about this. If you have to, get to Zurich, and leave me a note at the bank,” he said with a painful smile. “That way, Paul and I will know where to find you.”

Rosie leaned her forehead against Karl’s. “You’ve always been too good to me.”

Karl slid his arms around her. “I love you. I’ll always love you.”


	4. Thursday, March 8

Rosie’s hands were shaking as she opened the backdoor for Karl. He quickly stepped inside the dark hall. She had no idea what he would do now that he knew for sure someone was in the house. She felt his cold hand slide over her cheek and his cold lips kiss hers. He held her close to him. They silently went upstairs and locked the bedroom door. Karl took his camera from his inner coat pocket. He sat on the bed with her.

“I need a name and age,” Karl whispered. “Do they have any papers?”

Rosie nodded. “Elsa Sofia Korr. She’s seventeen. No papers at all.”

“And, does she _look_ Jewish?”

“Karl!”

Karl pulled out his cigarette case and showed her the picture of him and Freddie Schwartzmann. “My first Freddie.”

“Your first one? How many have there been?”

“It’s a popular name,” Karl said dismissively. Rosie was eyeing him. “Four.”

Rosie looked down at the photo. “Are you sure he was Jewish?” she asked incredulously.

“Oh, yes.”

Rosie blushed as she handed back the case. “I think she looks like a fairy.” Rosie caught Karl’s skeptically raised eyebrow. “She’s a cute teenaged girl. She has mischievous blue eyes, light brown hair, and round cheeks, slender little nose. She’s a little taller than me.”

Karl nodded. This worked for him since he’d told that lie to Oberst St. Johannes about having a child with a married woman when he was a young man. “The Americans crossed the Rhine yesterday. Rosie, I need identity photos of you, Jojo, and Elsa. Soon.”

“You won’t tell me anything?”

Karl sighed and put his arms around her. “No. Don’t change any of your habits. Don’t tell anyone you may be leaving. Don’t cancel any plans.” He took a deep breath. “But, you may need to tell Jojo about us.”

Rosie collapsed against Karl. “How do I do that? How can I betray him that way? I’ve told him all these years that Paul is coming home.”

Karl lifted her gaze to his. “Rosie, it’s been two and a half years. Have you had any single bit of evidence that he’s alive? A letter, message, memento. Anything?”

“I’m still getting his pay.”

Karl shook his head. “Other than that?”

Rosie stared at Karl. “No,” she said slowly. “But, I’m still getting his pay.”

Karl could see Rosie was on the verge of a terrible realization. He wasn’t going to tell her that Freddie had figured out how to embezzle from the Wehrmacht. “Someone is looking out for you wherever Paul is. You’ve always done the righteous thing, Rosie. Paul could be assigned to the hospital, living with you, and you’d still have a guest, whether he knew it or not.”

“I don’t want him to be gone,” Rosie whispered. “I don’t want to think about him dying alone or in pain. I want to see him walking through the front door with his briefcase and a tube full of drawings and maps again. I want to go dancing with him, even if he was terrible at it.”

Karl exhaled heavily as he hugged her tightly. “I want that, too. I love you more than life itself, but I want you to be happy. And, Paul made you so happy in a way I never could.”

Rosie sniffled a bit. “Could you now? If Paul were never coming home?”

Karl didn’t foresee himself living through the Russian invasion of eastern Bavaria, freeing Rosie to do as she wished once the war was over no matter what he promised her. “I could.” He kissed her forehead and left to take a bath. When he returned Rosie was waiting for him in a sheer black gown.

“Oh, my,” Karl said softly. He took her in his hand and twirled her around. He leaned his head against hers and noticed she was wearing Inge’s diamond earrings. The earrings were supposed to have been Rosie’s Christmas present in 1928, but after she unexpectedly married Paul that year, Karl couldn’t give them to her. Instead, he had given them to Inge as a christening present with Paul’s permission. Karl and Rosie danced silently to no music. “My dearest Grafine von Bischoffen, might I have the pleasure of your company this evening?”

Rosie looked up into Karl’s eyes. She kissed him softly. “You can have the pleasure of my company every evening, my darling Graf von Corten.”

Karl whirled her around and picked her up in his arms. Rosie’s hand was on his cheek, holding his lips to hers. He kissed her as he laid her on the bed. He kissed her shoulders as he pushed off each strap. Lying on his side, Karl carefully pushed the sheer gown down Rosie’s body while they kissed one another. Karl pulled her onto his hips as he turned onto his back. Rosie pulled away the towel around Karl. He held her face in both his hands. “My God, you’re beautiful.”

Rosie smiled at him. She turned her face and kissed Karl’s palm then his wrist then down his inner arm. She continued to kiss his shoulder and across his chest to his other scarred shoulder. She kissed every bit of his chest while she barely moved on his hips. Karl closed his eyes as he tried to outlast her. Rosie had just kissed Karl right above his navel when he saw her look up at him. Her sapphire eyes sparkled as did the diamonds in her ears. She stretched out over him and kissed him deeply. Karl barely touched her cheeks as he returned her kiss he dragged his hands lightly over her body and held her hips, positioning them. Her hands were just over his shoulders and one of Karl’s hands returned to Rosie cheek. Rosie turned her lips and kissed Karl’s fingertips. Her lips drew in each of his fingers alone, flittering her tongue over them. Karl grabbed both of her hips in his hands and pulled her as tightly to his groin as he could. He closed his eyes and nearly lost his breath as he came. Rosie let her forehead drop to Karl’s shoulder. 

“I love you, Rosie,” Karl whispered, wrapping his arms over her back. “I’ll always love you, and if I find him, I will bring Paul home to you.”


	5. Sunday, March 11

“You want to go fishing today,” Freddie repeated from deep in the covers.

Karl was sitting on his side of the bed contemplating how boney his bare feet looked. “Yeah. It’s a pretty day.”

“Karl, it’s barely dawn.”

Karl felt Freddie’s hand slip up his back and settle on his nape. “Freddie, don’t do that,” he objected softly.

Freddie knew that stroking Karl’s nape was like rubbing a dog’s belly. “Are the fish going anywhere?”

Karl closed his eyes and concentrated on the fingers stroking the back of his neck. It made him smile and feel incredibly warm. “Not really.”

Freddie sat up and kissed Karl’s nape then along his neck and shoulder. “Then let’s give them a few more hours peace.” Putting his arms around him, Freddie pulled Karl back into the bedcovers. 

Karl turned over in Freddie’s arms, and kissed him firmly. Since Freddie’s declaration of what he wanted in a post-war relationship, Karl found him to be more decisive in their domestic relationship. Freddie observed proper military etiquette in the office, but when they were upstairs, he was much less subservient. Even their lovemaking had changed. Freddie was more forward about what he desired, and Karl easily complied. Karl enjoyed lovers who told him what they wanted. 

“So, now that you have me back in bed, what do you want from me?” Karl asked as he kissed Freddie again.

Freddie rubbed his hand over Karl’s scratchy cheek. “Honestly, Karl, another hour or two of sleep.”

Karl softly laughed and turned onto his side, pulling Freddie against him. “Alright, another few hours, but then, we’re going fishing.”

Freddie still didn’t see the attraction of fishing, and it was much too cold to swim. He brought along a larger sketch book and a set of watercolors. He had sketched Karl casting the fly rod and now he was trying to paint the autumn colors from memory while he sat by a small fire. Karl had two trout in the bucket already. He wanted to take home two or four as well. 

“Karl,” Freddie called down to the water.

“Yes, Freddie?”

“Is everything ok between you and Frau Betzler?”

Karl thought that was a strange question. Since revealing he knew about Rosie, Freddie hadn’t asked anything about her. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You’ve been a little tense the last week.”

Karl shrugged as he reeled in the line. “I’m just worried for her. I see how the map is changing, and I don’t see anyone in Berlin acknowledging that the longer this lasts the worse things are going to be for us as a country and a people.” Karl whipped the fly upstream. “You were too young, but after the last war, we really thought the new republic would be better. I’ve lived through three Germany’s, Herr Finkle, each one worse than the last. If I live to see the next one, it’ll probably only be long enough to be shot or as a deportee for forced labor somewhere. I just want…I just want everything to be ok for her.”

Freddie watched as the tip of the rod suddenly bent with a strike. He lightly sketched Karl’s self-satisfied smile into the watercolor. Karl landed the trout and brought it to the bucket. 

“Have you thought about what happens if Herr Betzler never comes home?” Freddie cautiously asked as Karl took a moment for a drink.

Karl wasn’t so assured for a brief moment. “He’ll come home, Freddie. You and I just have to stay in touch, so I know where to meet you.” He smiled at Freddie, but Karl knew the way life worked. Weeks became months which became years. Letters dwindled to brief notes and then to a card at Christmas. After a while, promises became dreams, and the sharpest memories faded into a comforting blend of color and shape suggesting what once had been.

“When’s the last time you went shooting?” Karl asked as he unloaded ammunition from his pocket. He had bullets for the .22 and Paul’s K98 and shells for the shotgun.

Rosie watched him skeptically with her arms crossed. “Karl, if I’m loading the shotgun, things have already gone horribly wrong.”

Karl sighed. “I know, Rosie.”

Rosie picked up the cardboard boxes and opened her wardrobe. She disappeared inside while Karl took off his _feldbluse_. “But,” her voice was muffled by her clothes. “It was 1938. We went duck hunting with Skip and Jack von Hess[1] in Brandenburg that fall.”

“What the hell were Skip and Jack von Hess doing in Germany in 1938?” Karl asked as he sat down to take off his boots.

Rosie emerged from her wardrobe. “Skip was the American Army Attaché in Berlin, and Jack was pining over you. He was despondent you never popped up in America.”

Karl leaned back on the bed. “Pining?”

Rosie bent over the footboard and kissed Karl. “Pining. He tried to hide it in his disappointment over the collapse of the Berlin literary scene and market, but that man still loved you, Karl.”

Karl laughed. “How many passes did he make at you?”

“He reminded me that any time I wanted to restart my publishing career in New York, he would be more than happy to help me get settled, introduce me around, and his wife, Thalia, would be thrilled to help find appropriate nannies and schools for Inge and Jojo.” Rosie gently stroked Karl’s hair. “I don’t even speak good English, and Paul was standing right there. The man was utterly brazen.”

Karl smiled as he traced his index finger down the slope of Rosie’s nose. As a child, Rosie attracted trouble. As a woman, she had attracted wealthy men. “A man in possession of a fortune is undoubtedly in need of my darling Schatzie.”

Rosie giggled as she kissed Karl’s nose. “You are a silly thing.”

Karl lay next to Rosie, his head on her breast and his hand gently stroking the soft skin of her belly. Rosie slid her fingers between his. “I’m not pregnant, Karl.”

Karl lifted his head, confusion in his eye. “I didn’t….”

Rosie took his chin in her fingers. “Ever since we first made love at the Adlon, every few months you would start rubbing my tummy in bed as if you could divine with your fingertips whether I was or wasn’t. Once I told you I wasn’t, you’d stop for a few months then start up again.”

“Really?”

Rosie nodded then brought his lips to hers for a kiss. “Really.”

Karl kissed Rosie’s shoulder before laying his head there. “I’m really that predictable?”

“You were about that. And, you like blondes.”

“Well, one red-head in my life is all I can take.” 

Rosie reached over and smacked his bare butt. “Slut.”

“Ow,” Karl said as he laughed and held her more tightly. “I’ve been thinking maybe I should move at least my things into the house.”

Rosie turned over to face Karl. “Why?”

“If we’re busy moving trunks back and forth because I’m moving in, it might be easier to get Elsa out in a trunk one evening.”

Rosie frowned. “I don’t know, Karl. She’s been bundled off in boxes and under things and hidden in dark little garrets and closets so much.”

Karl nodded his understanding. “I’m making plans so that she doesn’t have to do that anymore.”

“How do I tell Jojo? You can’t just move in and share my bedroom.”

Karl shrugged. “Tell him Finkie needs the apartment some nights to woo the lovely Fraulein Braun, and I need a room. You have three bedrooms up here.[2] I’ll sleep in the third one. Or, tell him I need to store my stuff somewhere else, and it’s going in your attic. That way once you all leave, I can legitimately stay here and watch the place.” Karl kissed her forehead. “I’m asking you to trust me, a lot more than ever before. The less I tell you, the better off it will be if anything happens to either of us.”

Rosie’s brow furrowed with doubt. She knew he was talking about Deertz. 

“We may not have much time,” Karl pressed. “You have to be ready to act at any moment.”

Rosie shook her head. The first time she had dropped a leaflet, it had been frightening. This was terrifying. She had no control whatsoever. “And, what about Freddie? Isn’t this throwing him back to the she-wolf?”

“I’ll handle Freddie.” Karl didn’t mention that any day now, Jojo was going to be summarily dragged away from everything he knew and sent away, perhaps forever. He knew that heartache and anger personally. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be for years, only a few months. Karl hugged Rosie, trying to reassure her that everything was going to be alright. “I’m going to take care of you, Rosie. All of you. It’s going to work out.”

[1] Karl and Rosie knew the von Hess brothers back in the 20’s. They are part of a companion work. Well-educated Americans about ten years older than Karl and Rosie, Karl has a Same Time, Next Year relationship with Jack.

[2] The architecture of the Betzlers’ house in the movie is quite confusing. There seems to be a missing room upstairs.


	6. Monday, March 12

Karl delivered the film to the radiographic tech at the hospital before the six am meeting. “I’ll have it back to you tomorrow.”

“You’ll do it now,” Karl softly growled.

“Sir—”

“How much do I pay you?” Karl asked rhetorically. Ever since his first roll of film had come back with the prints suspiciously out of order, Karl had avoided the photographer in town.

The man sharply inhaled. “Now?”

“Now.”

“It takes two and a half hours.”

Karl pulled out his pocket watch. He prayed that Elsa wasn’t too stereotypical; however, judging from the pictures he’d seen in the HJ and BDM materials, only the grossest exaggerations had been taught to children over the years. “I’ll be back at nine. My fiancée and her family’s identity photos are on there. Make me four copies each the correct size.”

“Yes, sir.” The technician went to work immediately. Karl paid him too well not to.

Rosie set a fried egg on the plate for Jojo and smeared the last of the raspberry jam on a slice of bread. “Jojo!”

Jojo came into the kitchen and sat down at the table. His breakfast looked paltry, but at least he had an egg. Some other kids he knew only had bread for breakfast. He never asked why his mother always had eggs. “Thank you, Mama.”

Rosie smiled as she patted his hair. She thought about Elsa upstairs alone. She tried to spend time with the girl every night, but it was hard to do that until Jojo went to bed. She also couldn’t help but wonder if Elsa had ever heard Karl. Now that Karl knew about the girl, moving him into the house to facilitate getting her out seemed almost logical. If only Rosie knew how to tell Jojo that a man he liked and respected was not only going to be moving in but was also her lover. It was going to be such a betrayal.

“Mama, is Papa really coming home someday?”

“Hmm? Of course, he is,” Rosie cheerily told him. “We need a man around the house, you know. Who else is going to fix the leaky faucets, relight the furnace, and reach the stuff on the top shelves?”

“I just wish he’d write,” Jojo almost whispered.

“Me, too, kid.” Sighing, Rosie sat down with her cup of coffee. It wasn’t real coffee. She didn’t remember when she’d last had coffee made from real coffee beans. Rosie took a long drink of her ersatz coffee. It was suddenly vile. Whatever Karl’s plan was, she was only going to find out as it unfolded. It was so hard for her to just wait in ignorance, even if that ignorance meant safety for her and Jojo. Paul had not contacted her himself even once since that last letter, and now she was letting Karl decide when she was going to abandon her home, probably her name, and where she was going. Rosie sighed and finished her coffee. 

“Why wasn’t the girl in any of the Christmas photos?”

Karl raised a weary eyebrow at the tech. “She was quite ill over Christmas.” Karl slipped the tech some extra marks for the rush job. He took the envelope of photos out to the _kugelwagen_ and just sat there in the driver’s seat for a few moments letting his heart calm. 

If they could just last a few more days. Originally, Karl thought he would send Rosie and Jojo away on a Friday while Freddie was out. The addition of a hidden Jew moved up his plan to immediately. Now, he was thinking tomorrow evening. He wondered if Elsa could pass for Inge using Inge’s _kennkarte_ ; then they could make all the _kennkartes_ from Nuremberg and the Swiss passports match. If he could just meet the girl. This was no way to plan an operation. And, Karl wished he could just grab Freddie and all of them go together.

Karl only hoped the girl was a good actress and appreciated the danger they were all in for her. He couldn’t accompany them past Regensburg where he would drop off the trio at the train station. They would take the late train to Munich then the overnight train to Kempten and finally the morning train to Obertsdorf, if the Allies didn‘t bomb the tracks. From there Rosie could use the Swiss passports to cross the still open border as the wife and family of Karl Reichardt von Imrech, Swiss Vice-Consul in Nuremberg, if she wished. Once in Switzerland she would have access to the money to lay low and wait for passenger service to South American to resume. It wasn’t his original plan, but it was a better use of the passports.

Rosie put on her coat to oversee the midday dismissal. She slid her hand into her pocket and felt her crop and several pieces of paper. She felt her stomach churn. Why now? She couldn’t do this now. Rosie took a deep breath and decided not to think about anything other than dismissal and finding a bakery with bread during the midday break. 

Standing in the empty room surrounded by lists written on chalkboards, tacked to the walls, even written on the walls themselves, Herman Deertz looked down at the floor where he had mapped out what he suspected to be the current anti-Party network in Falkenheim. It had been a fascinating puzzle to arrange. The index cards were connected with different color yarn depending on how he perceived the relationship. They all worked back to a core group with Rosie Betzler at the center. He had a hard time believing Rosie Betzler was some kind of Resistance leader, an activist maybe but not an organizer. She was an overly outspoken and gregarious woman. A Resistance leader would be less obtrusive. But, there was that imperious air to her: as though nothing would ever dare hurt her and society’s rules didn’t apply to her. She did have the minds, if not the hearts, of many children and their families. Between her and Klenzendorf…. Deertz never asked himself or anyone else if his conclusions were reasonable and rational. 

He turned to the chalkboard and looked at his most important list: the librarian, a headmaster, an assistant headmistress, the old priest, a woodcutter, a kindergarten teacher, a bicycle repairman, and a plumber. Only Herr Thaller, Rosie, Father Nicolas, and Herr Kirschen were left. Gottleib and Grossmann, the plumber, were hanged. Volkmann, the bicycle repairman, and Fraulein Sprecher had been arrested and sentenced to hard labor. Deertz underlined Herr Kirschen’s name. He had a truck he used to bring wood to his customers.

“Captain Deertz,” Herr Frosch called into the big room. Only Deertz used the room because of its lack of heat. “Your mother’s cousin’s nephew’s wife’s sister just called for you.”

Deertz looked over in annoyed confusion. “Who?”

“Frau Louisa Eichmann.”

“Oh, God, what does she want?” Deertz muttered, looking back at his lists. He imagined Cousin Louisa was going to complain about sprites tangling her laundry on the line. When he ran into her at the bank in February, she had asked if the Gestapo or the Wehrmacht intended to do anything about the dragon living beneath Furth im Wald. She was actually the only person in Falkenheim he wanted to avoid.

“She said she just saw Rosie Betzler doing quote _a horribly scandalous thing_.”

“Let me guess. Publicly holding hands with Klenzendorf before she’s divorced?”

“No, littering leaflets on the street.”

Deertz coolly looked over at Frosch. “Really?”

Frosch shrugged. “You know Frau Eichmann and Frau Betzler better than I do.”

“Well, let’s go find out what’s really happening. Frau Eichmann is given to rather fanciful thoughts. She told me fairies bring babies.” Deertz tried not to be too excited.

Frosch grinned a little bit. “Everybody used to say that.”

“It was this past Christmas when one of my cousins had a new sprout to show off.” Deertz put down his chalk and crossed the room.

“Good looking kid?”

Deertz smiled. “Oh, yes. Blonde, green eyes. Going to be a tall one I think.”

“It does run in your family,” Frosch noted as they walked to the coat rack.

Karl drummed on his desk. He planned to make an impromptu visit to Rosie at her office once the kids started coming in, as though he were inviting her out on a public date for a bit of _kuchen und kaffee_. He’d filled out and signed all the forms he could, made grand summer plans he knew would never be implemented, even called the uniform supply about the availability of new major’s insignia. He really didn’t want to use a dead man’s boards from the hospital’s dregs if it got that far.

The phone on Gerti’s desk rang, and she answered it. “Captain, it’s for you.”

Karl picked up his phone as he lit a cigarette. “Klenzendorf.”

“Rosie Betzler was arrested by the Gestapo,” a muffled voice said before abruptly hanging up. 

Karl stared at the phone and tried to recall what had just been said to him. Rosie arrested by the Gestapo? That made no sense. It was like saying a dolphin was invited to tea. As Karl came to grips with what he’d heard, he realized Rosie arrested by the Gestapo meant that the house would be searched. Karl’s stomach sank. They could find Elsa or Rosie’s original identity certificates or the old photos from Berlin or the old von Corten Press books with both of their names on them. He had to get over there. Now.

Casually standing up and putting on his pistol belt, he picked up his hat as well. He drifted by Freddie’s desk. “Finkie, don’t look up,” he said so softly as to be imperceptible. “Where’s your pistol?”

Freddie barely looked away from the typewriter. “Locked in my desk drawer,” he answered equally quietly.

“Is it loaded?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Put it in something and come with me.”

Gerti saw the two men whispering. Probably about sex, seeing who had any spare condoms. She’d occasionally seen Captain K walking home at six a.m. and wondered who his lover was. Everyone knew Freddie was dating Tekla Braun, and the girl was a sex addict.

Karl walked past Gerti’s desk. “Fraulein Rahm, the _konditerei_ on Goethestrasse is making the last sacher torte ever today, and I just can’t stop myself. Hold down the fort? Finkie and I will bring you a piece.”

Gerti shrugged. Men. “Sure.”

Karl winked at her. “Finkle, sacher torte awaits.”

“Yes, sir.” Freddie picked up a beaten attaché case with venereal disease pamphlets from the hospital and stealthily slipped his pistol in it. He grabbed his hat and followed Karl. 

Downstairs, Karl grabbed a spare bike from beneath the stairs. The _kugelwagen_ would tip off everyone. “Hop on, Freddie.”

“Sir?”

“Come on, didn’t you ever ride double when you were a kid?”

“When I was ten.”

“Ten? I was still riding my girlfriend around on the handlebars when I was thirteen.” Karl walked the bike out to the street. He straddled the seat, and Freddie nervously sat on the handlebars. 

“Are you sure about this, sir?” Freddie asked with a wavering voice as Karl pushed off.

“Yes, I am.” Karl let gravity pull the bike down the hill and swerved around the corner as Freddie grabbed his hat.

“Where are we going?

“To interfere with Deertz and his Gestapo toadies.”

“He could arrest us!”

“For what?”

“Anything!”

Karl ignored Freddie’s complaint and cycled to Rosie house. He was at one end of the long street when he saw Deertz’s sinister car pull up. “ _Gottverdammt_!” he yelled into Freddie’s ear.

“Why is the Gestapo at the Betzlers?” Freddie yelled with alarm. 

Just then Karl hit a spot where a cobble had been pushed up by the winter’s cold. He felt his tire bounce oddly and the sudden flat. Freddie almost flew off the front. He jumped off as Karl picked up the bike. “Freddie, we have to keep Deertz from finding anything incriminating.”

Freddie paled. He knew Karl loved Rosie after some fashion, but they really didn’t need to tangle with the Gestapo, did they? “What could she possibly have?”

Karl started running, carrying his bike to look less hurried. “I don’t know! But, my God, Rosie Betzler? She could have anything!”

After the “routine inspection,” Freddie went to the Goethe Konditerei and managed to get the last piece of sacher torte. He left Karl loitering around the corner from Rosie’s house on the street into the alley. Karl had been smoking as he leaned against a shadowy wall. He wanted to make sure Deertz didn’t return and take Jojo and the girl. Freddie tried to get Karl to come home, but Karl had silently shaken his head then reminded him about the torte and given him ten Reichsmarks. When Freddie walked into the _Jugend_ building, he saw the bike with the flat tire and walked upstairs to the office.

Gerti intercepted Freddie at the door. “Did you hear? Frau Betzler was arrested,” she loudly whispered.

Freddie stared, pretending to be dumbfounded. “What? Oh, here’s the sacher torte. Last piece. What was she arrested for?” He handed her the pink box from the pastry shop.

Gerti shrugged her shoulders. “Knowing Frau Betzler, anything. She’s always been kind of a pistol.”

Freddie looked down towards Karl’s office. “Who’s he on the phone with?”

“Reich’s Prosecutor’s Office. He’s trying to find out what the charges are. Why do you think he’s so interested in her?”

Freddie sighed. However secret Karl and Rosie’s affair was, it was about to become prime gossip. “Because he’s _interested_ in her.”

Gerti stared for a moment. “Really?” she asked as her eyes grew wide. “Captain K and Frau Betzler? Oh, my God.” Gerti stared at Karl with a new appreciation for his early morning wanderings. “Well, I suppose it makes sense. They are both from Berlin and Catholic, even if he does have that weird accent. I bet they’re close to the same age, too. Do you think he could have known her? You know, from way back? Do you think she’s given up on Herr Betzler?”

“I don’t know. Berlin’s a pretty big city, and it has been almost two and a half years. Hey, enjoy the cake.” Freddie walked to his desk and sat down, so he could eavesdrop better. He saw Karl sitting back with his feet up on the desk and a hand running through his hair to his neck. He looked calm and relaxed, but Freddie knew from how tight Karl’s mouth was set that he was masking panic.

“Captain Karl Klenzendorf, Reichsheer. I’m calling about Rosie Betzler….No, I just wanted to see what the state of things is. Her son spends a lot of time here at the _Jugend_ office, and I like to keep abreast of the children’s family status….Oh, no. That is serious. Terrible. I can hardly believe it….What’s usually the outcome?....Oh, God.” Karl’s voice broke a bit even though he tried to control it. “I…I’ve just never had a friend accused. I mean, Poles, Russians, sure, but not someone I thought I knew. And, definitely not a German….Well, yes, I suppose I can’t deny we’ve had a relationship….And, I can’t deny that either….Why so clandestine? Her husband’s still carried MIA, but I’m pretty sure he’s dead. We didn’t want to upset the children. It’s hard enough losing a father, but to not know and have your mother take up with another man. It just seemed kinder….About, about the sentence if it gets that far. I would be willing to be responsible for her. I…I could move into the house, make sure she was never unsupervised….Well, we had discussed it, but she wanted to apply to the court to declare him dead or get a divorce decree issued for abandonment….Children? She has the two, and we’d talked about possibly having one or two of our own….Yeah, we were thinking this summer after my promotion in June….Oh, that. The Heer had a copy of my memorandums about how unsafe the plan I was being forced to implement was, so they threw all responsibility back on the _Jugend_ regional office….I know. I know. Uneducated proles doing the work that should be reserved to graduates….So, if you have any kind of pull with the judge....No, I won’t be sent back to the Front. I’m surprised they didn’t retire me. I’m a walking disaster area. One eye, two busted shoulders, a gimpy hip, my left thigh aches like a bitch when it’s going to rain from a clean break in Stalingrad, perpetually ten kilos underweight from endemic disease or parasites, they couldn’t figure which. But, after June, I could be reassigned somewhere like Munich and take Rosie and her family with me….No, no. I understand. I appreciate you doing what you can….Yeah. Heil Hitler.” Karl hung up the phone and laid his head on the desk. Prospects were dim. 

Freddie was pretending to mark up plans for the 1945 summer training weekend, but he was really wondering if Karl and Rosie had truly talked about getting married and having children. It was nothing Karl had ever mentioned. Freddie knew Karl would lead people on to manipulate them. He just had never considered Karl was a talented liar and still didn’t. 

“You should stay here.” Freddie had said it repeatedly that evening when he went out to check the gallows. 

Now, Karl watched as the hands on his pocket watch ticked past midnight. He couldn’t sleep. Freddie was passed out on the fainting couch. Karl feared the speed with which the local court passed sentences on the slightest of pretenses and then Deertz carried them out. Frau Gottlieb would have been recognized as an emotionally distraught woman in a larger city, and she and Herr Gottlieb would still be alive. Karl opened his cigarette case and stared at the picture of Rosie. He couldn’t think of a way to rescue her and could only think that he should have simply told her weeks ago to get Jojo and taken them away on some ridiculous excursion and not ever have brought them back. He could have dealt with Elsa himself afterwards. 


	7. Tuesday, March 13

Freddie woke up as he heard Karl belting on his pistol and the greatcoat rustling around. He briefly saw the brass flash of Karl’s American trench knife strapped into his boot. “Karl, don’t,” he said rolling off the fainting couch. “Let me go look. You don’t want to see that.”

Karl didn’t even acknowledge Freddie had spoken and walked out of the office. Freddie quickly pulled on his boots and coat and followed. He didn’t know what he was going to do with or to Karl if the worst had happened. Karl’s pistol was loaded, and Freddie feared Karl would go hunt down Deertz. He followed just half a step behind, close enough to grab Karl’s arm and pull him back.

The church bells were striking the quarter hour when Karl stepped onto Hohenzollernplatz. The gallows were not immediately visible from the street he had walked down. It was still twilight, and the gloom from the night’s clouds still lay over the town. Thin, dry snow swirled on the grey cobbles. From the distance, Karl saw two SS privates standing next to the gallows. He felt his breath quicken as did his pace. Freddie watched Karl’s right hand. He was running now, and Freddie behind him. In the bare blue light, Freddie couldn’t tell what color coat the newest corpse wore.

Karl came to a halt in front of the gallows. He could barely breathe and hardly see. But, he saw her red hair. “No. No. NO. NO!” he finally shrieked as he fell on his knees. “NO! NO! NO!” He bent double, screaming into the pavers, his hat fallen from his head. 

Freddie managed to stifle his own horrified shout. Rosie Betzler was a harmless woman who did nothing but try to make the world a better place for the children she was charged with. She worried over every one of them. And, now she was gone. 

The two SS privates held their rifles uncertainly. They’d never been to the front and never had to put a man in their sites. This morning their enemy was a Wehrmacht officer who had collapsed into a screaming, moaning heap in front of them. Their orders were to shoot anyone who touched Rosie Betzler.

Freddie bent down over Karl. “Sir, come on. Come on home.”

“NO! Not her!”

Freddie could see more shutters opening. He imagined every golden window had a person in it watching. A few people were crossing the platz, mostly going to bakeries in hopes of finding bread. “Sir, there’s nothing anyone can do now. Come home.” Freddie pulled Karl by the shoulders. He resisted, but Freddie was able to get Karl up on his knees. 

“I didn’t save her,” Karl sobbed. “I was supposed to save her.”

Freddie pulled Karl to standing. “Let’s go home, sir.”

Karl couldn’t stop the tears. “I was supposed to save my beloved Brunhild.”

Freddie assumed this was some playful thing they’d acted out in bed. He never knew that Rosie’s middle name was once Brynhild or that she and Karl had been children together playing out all manner of adventures. He put his arm around Karl’s shoulders and tried to turn him away from Rosie’s body. “Come on, sir. We need to go home.”

Karl tried to go back to Rosie. “How can I leave her?”

“We have to go, sir.” Freddie guided a crying Karl away from the platz. Karl stopped and threw up on the street. Freddie wiped Karl’s mouth. “Come on, Karl. We’re almost there.”

Freddie managed to get them back to the _Jugend_ building. Karl walked upstairs to his office and stood there in front of his desk. Freddie hung back, unsure of what might happen next. 

“NO!” Karl roared as he swept everything from his desk. His phone hit the floor with a jangling dinging, and the lamp shattered against a file cabinet. Papers and pens flew around the room. An enraged Karl rushed to the windows and threw open the shutters. He kicked the heavy wooden shutter and then punched it repeatedly as it bounced on its hinges. He screamed ferally as he beat the shutter and finally collapsed into the floor. Freddie thought Karl’s rage might be expended, but it was only a moment. Karl viciously kicked the shutter with both heels as tears flew out of his eyes, and he beat his fists on the oak floor. 

Freddie knelt down and tried to calm Karl before he hurt himself. His knuckles were already red and bloody. “Karl. Karl, you’re going to hurt yourself,” Freddie tried to soothe him. “Karl, please.”

Karl looked at Freddie. His sobbing had overwhelmed him. “She…she was…I loved her.”

Freddie felt tears in his own eyes. “I know.”

Karl shook his head. “She...was…my…” Karl couldn’t get more than a few words out before his sobbing stopped him. He reached for his cigarette case and smacked it against Freddie’s chest. “She…was,” Karl whispered haltingly through teary sobs.

Freddie stared at the intricately engraved case and finally opened it. “Oh, God,” he whispered. He sat back trying to comprehend Karl having such an old photo of Rosie. “Oh, my God.”

“She was…my Schatzie,” Karl nodded as he tried to take a deep breath. “Since I was ten. I loved her.” He took back the cigarette case and looked adoringly at the photo of Rosie. “I loved her.”

Freddie didn’t know what to say. No wonder Karl and Rosie had fallen in with one another so intensely. No wonder he affably submitted to her cheery demands. 

“And, Inge. Inge is…” Karl’s voice failed him. He patted his chest. “Inge…”

Freddie’s eyes widened. “Inge is yours?” he whispered in shock.

Karl managed to shake his head. “My…my goddaughter.”

Freddie sighed in relief. He put his arms around Karl and felt Karl collapse against him. He started crying again. With Karl somewhat calm, Freddie unbuckled the pistol belt and slung it across the floor. He also slipped the knife from Karl’s boot and tossed it aside.

“My darling, beautiful Schatzie is gone,” Karl whispered into Freddie’s tear soaked shoulder. “How can she be gone? Who would destroy something so beautiful and wonderous and brave as my Rosie?” Karl looked up into Freddie’s eyes. “She was born in China, you know.”

Freddie shook his head. “I didn’t know that.” Freddie wiped the tears from Karl’s face. 

“She was. And she had the most wonderful playroom with an amazing Chinese palace instead of a dollhouse. I attacked with tin soldiers, and she defended with windup animals. I remember the color of the sun streaming through her long hair held up by a crepe bow as she sat in Latin class. Our first dance was a waltz to _Tales from the Vienna Woods_ when we were twelve.” Karl let his forehead fall back onto Freddie’s shoulder. “How can I live without my beautiful Schatzie somewhere in this world?” 

“I don’t know, Karl.” Freddie hugged Karl. “I don’t know.”

Eventually, Freddie left a spent Karl sitting in the floor by the windows and began to clean up the office. Once he had things back in order, he sat in Karl’s chair and called the hospital. “Sergeant Finkle for Oberst Doctor St. Johannes…Yes, it is an emergency. It’s about Captain Klenzendorf.” Freddie stared up at the ceiling while St. Johannes was fetched. “Heil Hitler, sir. Captain Klenzendorf won’t make the daily command and staff for the next few days….No, sir, he isn’t ill. The Gestapo hanged his girlfriend sometime last night. He just saw it. He’s not fit for duty….Yes, sir. I’ll let him know he has seventy-two hours. Thank you, sir. Heil Hitler.”

Deertz watched Karl standing on Hohenzollernplatz staring up at Rosie, ignoring the morning’s business going on around him. He had a cigarette in his hand that he occasionally took a drag from. Karl finished one cigarette and lit the next off the butt. People rushed past the lonely, despairing officer. For those who knew her, hanging Rosie was like smashing a crystal chandelier that lit a room of their lives. All the glittering light was gone. Deertz wondered how long Karl would stand there. It wouldn’t do for him to linger there all day. People would talk, even more than they already were.

Karl tried to remember exactly how Rosie had looked on Sunday and compare her to what he saw now. Deep bruises ringed her unsnapped neck.[1] She hadn’t died quickly. There were no mars on her face. Her locket was gone. He hadn’t looked for her wedding ring. Her hair still had the curls she’d put in it the previous day. She even had a trace of her brilliant lipstick. 

“She was a beautiful woman,” Deertz admitted as he walked up to Karl. He stood a few feet away and looked up at Rosie. “It must be a terrible blow to find out your lover was a traitor. A stab in the back,”

Karl didn’t take his eyes off Rosie. “More like a knife in the heart. If I find out any of you or your SS dogs touched her,...”

Deertz calmly looked at Karl. He shook his head. 

Barely mollified, Karl quietly said, “You didn’t have to hang her.”

“It was the sentence handed down by Judge Neufeld. And, she did confess. She admitted what she’d done and why she did it. She was so calm. Not a tear or a sob. She never defended herself, never offered up anyone else as a bargaining chip. She didn’t even try to claim she was pregnant and make us go on a wild goose chase to disprove it. Most women do, even the ones who obviously can’t conceive any longer. And, true to form, her last words were bold and vaguely insulting: _Live free or die, Deertz_.[2] Jacobin heresy.”

“You must have been afraid of something, because you didn’t hang her publicly.” Karl finished another cigarette and lit the next one off the butt. “You could have slow-walked the sentence. You could have shown some mercy for her or at least the children and kept her locked up. _But,_ _you_ _didn’t have to hang her_ ,” Karl repeated in a calm, soft voice. 

Deertz bristled at being called a coward. “For how long? And how fair would that be? Not hanging Rosie Betzler and hanging others?”

Karl heard the slight flutter of the skinny resistance leaflets stapled to the corpses. “A resistance is like a hydra, Deertz. For every one of them you kill, you create two more,” Karl said tiredly. He flicked his ashes away. “And, don’t you dare touch those children or send them the bill.”

“The bill?”

“You’re a bunch of weak-livered, pencil-necked accountants and lawyers. You bill families for the rope and dumping the corpse in a mass grave. Three hundred Reichsmarks[3], I believe.” Karl was still gazing mournfully at Rosie. So many memories came flooding back. She had been a dazzling presence in his life, even when that presence was dimmed by time and distance. Now, it was no more than a single, fading photograph. 

“Captain, I’d be careful who I insulted these days. You may have been a golden boy once, but you are far, far away from those who could really protect you from the full throated fury of the Gestapo,” Deertz snarled softly.

Karl suddenly turned and looked up at Deertz. “GO ON! DO IT!” His scream attracted the attention of the people trying to stay safely anonymous. 

Deertz’s eyebrows crossed in angry confusion. “Do what?” he hissed. “And keep your voice down!”

“Arrest me! Try me! Hang me, too! Come on! I’ve had a few brushes with Death! What’s one more from my own people!”

Deertz stepped back. Karl had obviously lost his mind over his lover’s death. “Captain Klenzendorf.”

Karl’s hand yanked his Walther P38 from its holster. “Here. There’s a round in the chamber. Take it.” He held out the pistol, grip first. “It’s easy to fire. Just pull the trigger.”

Deertz stared at the gun. He’d learned to fire a pistol in his training but never had to in the course of his work and never carried one. “Captain,” he said nervously, hoping to calm Karl.

Furious, Karl held the pistol backwards in his hand. “Here, I’ll even hold it for you.” He stretched out his right arm with the pistol aimed at his head. He grabbed Deertz’s right hand and forced him to wrap it around Karl’s own hand. “There,” Karl snarled as he pushed Deertz’s index finger into the trigger guard. “All you have to do is squeeze. Here, I’ll make it a dead certain shot in case you fear hitting a bystander.” Karl stepped fully in front of the pistol, pressing the barrel into his forehead. “You can’t miss.” He finally looked up into Deertz’s horrified face.

Deertz looked down at a devastated man. Karl’s eyes were red with dark circles beneath them. His face was drawn and pale this morning. His lips were chewed. He looked too thin for his uniform. His blind eye flashed with primal rage but was set in a grief-stricken face. Deertz felt the cold metal of the trigger guard on the back of his finger, and briefly the pad rested on the trigger itself. “This is madness!” He extricated his finger and pulled his hand out of Karl’s. He waited to see if Karl would shoot himself, hoping he wouldn’t. That would take too much explaining to the Nuremberg regional office.

“God damn coward! You’ll hang a school headmistress in the middle of the night to avoid the disapproval of the town, but you won’t shoot her lover in the head when he offers himself up to you! You can’t even do your own executions!” Karl’s disgust was obvious, virulent, and loud.

Deertz was acutely aware of the people surreptitiously watching. “Go home, Klenzendorf! You’re obviously drunk or just out of your mind with grief over a traitor and a criminal!”

“You even breathe near Rosie’s kids, and I’ll scoop out your brains with a fucking grapefruit spoon!”

Deertz sneered at Karl but was wondering what a grapefruit spoon was. He accidentally asked, “Grapefruit spoon?”

Karl spat at Deertz. “Fucking barbarian peasant.” He turned and walked away. He didn’t want to leave Rosie there with Deertz, but he couldn’t stay another moment without reaching into his boot and taking out his old trench knife then beating Herman Deertz to death with it. Jojo and Elsa needed someone to look out for them.

“You should watch yourself, Captain! You aren’t immune or immortal!” Deertz yelled at Karl’s retreating back

Herr Thaller rushed home in the spring cold. He could barely believe there had been one more snow. It was a light, icy snow, but it had burned the vegetables beginning to grow in his back garden. As he crossed the platz, he looked purposely towards the ground. He hadn’t been able to contain his tears that morning though he feared the howling sobs he heard from the Captain, crumpled on the ground in front of the gallows. Now he saw Johannes Betzler sitting on the frozen cobbles, cross-legged, gazing up at his mother. The old man almost broke into tears again. How cruel was Deertz to let the boy sit there? Surely one of his minions was watching to be sure no one tampered with Rosie Betzler, especially after the Captain’s suicidal outburst that morning. 

Thaller remembered seeing Rosie and Herr Betzler on summer evenings by the river. Even though the Betzlers walked with their children’s hands in theirs, Thaller had seen the smiles and soft kisses between two adults who loved one another. Rosie always smiled when asked about Paul, even when she was grumpy over something he’d done or not done. Rosie shown too brightly and lived too boldly for Falkenheim. She was misplaced in the small town. Her wardrobe had dulled some, but her spirit never had. And, now that spirit was gone.

“Johannes,” Thaller softly called. “Johannes.”

Jojo didn’t hear his name. He didn’t hear anything. He finally felt a touch on his shoulder. He looked up, and the wild, white hair of the librarian blocked out the day’s pale sun. 

“Johannes, you need to go home.”

“But, Mama…”

Sighing, Thaller gave Jojo’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You need to go home, Johannes.”

Jojo couldn’t take his eyes off of Rosie. “My mama…”

“Johannes, go home and stay there.”

“But, Mama will be alone.”

Finally, Thaller turned Jojo’s face to him. “Jojo, she won’t be pretty tomorrow,” he said haltingly. “Go home and remember how pretty your mother was.” He felt Jojo’s icy hands. He didn’t have any mittens or gloves on. “Your hands are like ice. Come on, Jojo. Let’s walk to your house.”

Karl stared through his whiskey bottle. He had drunk so much his head lay on the dining table. 

Freddie set down a plate of bread and cheese and a few wursts he managed to find. “Come on, Karl, you need to eat something,” he gently coaxed.

Karl wiped at the tears on his face. “There’s no one there for Jojo.”

“Inge’s there.” Freddie put his arm across Karl’s shoulders, trying to comfort him, but he knew there was really nothing to do. Karl’s grief was just going to have to work itself out.

Karl grimaced. The girl was still a danger to Jojo if anyone recognized her. “Inge. She’s fifteen and ill. Rosie told me her heart went bad from influenza.” Karl drunkenly sat up. “Where the fuck are you, Paul! You swore to me you’d take care of her!” He suddenly remembered he was sure Paul was dead in Egypt and covered his eyes as he began crying again. “They’re alone, Freddie! And, they don’t have anyone.” Karl collapsed onto the table, and Freddie consolingly patted Karl’s back.

Freddie couldn’t think of what to do for or with Jojo and Inge. The children had no relatives to be sent to. Karl was Inge’s godfather, but revealing that would open up a whole host of questions about Karl. Sending them to an orphanage felt cruel, but there was no one to take care of them. And, after Karl’s outburst today, Deertz was going to keep a much closer eye on him. “We’ll think of something, Karl,” he finally said, although he had no idea what.

[1] The Gestapo overwhelmingly used the short-drop method of hanging, leaving the condemned to strangle instead of more humanely snapping the neck and inducing unconsciousness.

[2] The sentiment is remarkably present throughout modern West European history. It was a rallying cry during the French Revolution.

[3]I’ve read this in the past but can’t find the citation. Charging a “bullet fee” would be right up the Gestapo’s alley.


	8. Explanatory Notes

_Why did Rosie do it?_

Rosie is supporting the resistance to the Nazi Party in two ways: hiding a Jew and anonymous leafleting. Either one is dangerous. Both historically led to death sentences. But, why is she doing both? It would seem to be enough to do one or the other. 

In the film and the book, Caging Skies, Rosie’s sense of rational risk taking is really skewed. In the book, by the time she is arrested, Rosie has almost stopped caring for Elsa and is quite despondent, perhaps even delusional. Most of the care for the family, including Oma Betzler, falls to Jojo. Is Waititi’s Rosie actually acting rationally? Is she as zealously anti-Nazi as Jojo is pro-Nazi? Has she unwittingly bitten off more than she could reasonably chew? Is she the kind of person who takes unnecessary risks with no thought to the negative consequences?

Rosie is a cheerful, determined, effervescent force of nature. She does walk through life as if not a thing would dare harm her. She could simply have been overconfident. However, Rosie distributing anti-Nazi leaflets while she’s hiding a Jew in her house is just an unanswerable question for me. It seems ludicrous almost. Which is why in this work, MyRosie doesn’t know how these leaflets get into her possession and why she also feels some kind of pressure to distribute them. Human dignity is MyRosie’s priority given the desperation, deprivation, and degradation she suffered after the end of the last war. It may not have been the priority of the others she was working with who wanted to simply free Germany of the Nazi Party and might be willing to sacrifice an ethnic minority to do it. Just because it’s a resistance movement to a horrendous regime, doesn’t mean the resistors are necessarily well intentioned. Political movements do test their members’ loyalty, similar to Jojo being told to kill the rabbit. Rosie could also have been involved in two completely separate networks: one based on compassion to hide an old friend or neighbor’s daughter and the other a more ideologically based group. 

With the vagaries of the timeline in Jojo Rabbit, we really don’t have a good idea of when Rosie was hanged relative to other events. If it was relatively soon after her arrest, she probably fell into the hands of a People’s Court. The Nazi regime established People’s Courts ( _Volksgerichtshof_ ) operating outside the constitutional framework to try political offenses, which could be almost anything. An average trial included summary judgement by the president of the court, verbal abuse liberally heaped on the accused, and a quick execution. Wachsmann found that between 1934-1945, 10,980 people sentenced to prison, 5,179 executed, and nearly 1,000 acquitted,[1] in which case, she had better than even odds of _not being executed_. Executions did speed up after the loss of Stalingrad and the 1944 Valkyrie plot. The Gestapo also used prosecutions for score-settling.

_How to Organize a Resistance:_

With limited library resources right now, I don’t have a lot of access to organizational theory journals. In the film, Elsa says that Rosie told her it was just some of her friends and her who decided to act. This is a kernel to start with, however resistance movements based on narrow social networks, no matter class or ethnic appeal, do not do as well. Additionally, resistance movements with outside, material support organize themselves more hierarchically and efficiently and better maintain discipline, no rogue operations. (Staniland, 2010)[2]. 

How likely was Rosie Betzler to have trustworthy friends outside her educated, upper class existence? (In the book, the Betzlers own a metal stamping factory and a very well appointed, large home. They were doing well financially.) There was little to no Allied support of German resistance activities. A real example of a good-hearted but failed resistance is the romanticized White Rose Society. They were academics and intellectuals targeting other academics and intellectuals. Those were not the people who had actual access to actionable intelligence or arms, the people who had those things, or could put together a government in waiting. Hitler may have been wary of the power of mass demonstrations, but the few recorded during the war in Germany were mass actions revolving around food and pay not overthrowing the government. 

Should you need to organize a resistance, keeping cell sizes small and functions fungible is imperative. No man should be indispensable. The way data travels on the internet is one of the best analogies. In the US military, the span of control, the number of people directly reporting to the next higher echelon, is generally four, as is the number of people a lower level leader controls. The fireteam is the smallest unit and consists of four troops and sergeant. However, one must recall that insurgencies operate covertly, therefore the span of control needs to be much smaller. A resistance cell of six people meeting in the basement of a darkened shop is more vulnerable than a cell structure where each member recruits only two others, who do not ever interact or know each other’s identity. That way if a member is arrested, he can only give at most three names: his controller and his two recruits. It needs to be difficult and time consuming to break a resistance, and forcing the authorities to roust out the organization literally one or two people at a time can be used to frustrate the regime while accomplishing missions that aid in gathering outside allies. Operating on a need to know basis will also highly compartmentalize the spread, and enemy acquisition, of intelligence.

So, how was the resistance organized in Falkenheim? MyDeertz obviously is looking for groups that have nothing naturally in common except perhaps anti-Party sentiment. However, if we look at Rosie’s gregarious personality she would know people from all over town. It wouldn’t be unusual for her to know her priest, the head librarian, plumber, bicycle repairman, the woodcutter who sells her firewood, another teacher, and her boss. MyDeertz is looking for a rigid organization maximizing span of control and not a smaller, nimbler network. He believes he is dismantling a terrorist network, when he is really just honing in on one woman’s naturally occurring, social network. He is falling victim to his own bias against Rosie and discovering an actual resistance activist now and then just by chance.

_Resistance to the NSDAP_

The German resistance to Nazism was never well organized or cooperative internally, and unsupported, if not completely ignored, by the Allies because the German resistance was so unorganized, flighty, and unrealistic in their post-war goals. Most resistance activities were hyper-local, but they did often include members of the military, civilian leadership, and government employees. Estimates of proper judicial executions vary, depending on many, many factors. Some claim that as few as 40,000 judicial executions for all crimes were carried out or as many as 70,000 people in Germany alone were executed for resistance to the Nazi regime, and many more most likely sentenced to concentration camps. Given the Nazi proclivity for executing hostages in France in retaliation for Resistance activity, executing anyone for resistance in Germany was probably good enough. As Captain K says, “They’ll come and kill the Jew…(A)nd because these are very paranoid times, probably some other people just in case.”

The German resistance had to overcome an unwilling and unsupportive population, factional ideologies—the socialists and the communist would kill and betray each other if they could, and a military culture against mutiny. The Wehrmacht generals involved in various plots against Hitler eventually concluded they couldn’t coup him into coming to his senses; they had to kill him in order to release the officers from their oaths. The idea that an order could be illegal and implementation was illegal as well as dishonorable was not part of the Prussian military tradition. Oaths were oaths, and orders were orders. In contrast, everywhere else in Europe there was an easily definable enemy, the Germans. Internecine political battles could wait. 

The Americans and British had greater political concerns than the German resistance to Nazism that prevented any kind of relationship, mostly keeping the Russians in the war and the pressure on the Germans in the East, as well as unrealistic conditions from German resistors, such as keeping Poland. Additionally, once the Morgenthau Plan to disarm, divide, de-industrialize, and impoverish Germany completely and for all time was revealed, the Nazi Party had all the proof they needed for propaganda purposes to keep the people fighting and sacrificing to the bitter end. There was very nearly a repeat of the Versailles Treaty in 1946, however, that course of action was abrogated by American and later British realization that while previously Nazi-occupied countries were getting back on their feet politically and in terms of agriculture and local economies, Germany was the economic engine of Europe in a way France simply couldn’t be. France didn’t have the human capital to do it, and vengeance upon the civilian and military population of Germany nearly screwed the pooch a second, and arguably, more fragile time.

(For a fresh take on why the inter-war era failed so spectacularly, check out The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End (2016) by Robert Gerwarth. Excellent notes and bibliography for those interested in the period.)

[1]Nicolaus Wachsmann, Hitler's Prisons: Legal Terror in Nazi Germany. Yale University Press (2004)

[2] Paul Stephen Staniland, Explaining cohesion, fragmentation, and control in insurgent groups. MIT Department of Political Science, (2010)


End file.
